Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Science / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 22, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2015
A week or so ago, a reader asked me if I had any other tips about homeschool planning. She had read the posts I had put together on short term and long term goals and planning, but wondered if I had any other thoughts. She wondered how I make sure we keep tabs on the resources and books and planning things out in general. I spent a lot of the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 20, 2014 · Last modified May 15, 2016
The past week or two, I’ve been doing a series of posts about homeschooling… trying to address the incredibly challenging question, “How do I start homeschooling?” Now that I’ve (more or less) finished talking about the nitty gritty issues of curriculum, I wanted to spend a few days talking about some of the more nebulous aspects of homeschooling. Today I want to talk about some of the benefits and challenges...
This week I’m going to hit a major milestone since joining the Parents.com team… two million hits on my blog…. one million in just the past nine months. I feel incredibly grateful to be a part of such a wonderful team and love having the blog to share our family’s homeschool journey. Ours is certainly not the best/ideal/only way to homeschool, but I enjoy sharing how we meander through each...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 20, 2014 · Last modified April 2, 2021
If you are planning a trip to the beach this summer, you might be interested in some of these freebies I made for the kids when we did our ocean unit. I hope someone finds these helpful! Below are some of the ocean invertebrate cards that I made when we were studying the ocean. Remember, crustaceans, arachnids and insects are all part of the arthropod group (look at this chart to see what...
My sister’s family also homeschools, so we take advantage of the pre-summer season prices to spend a week together. We met up with my Dad & step-Mom, my sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew at the Outer Banks. The weather had called for temperatures in the low 70s last week, but once we arrived the forecast changed. We had several days between 85-88 degrees. Perfect for the beach! I slathered the...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 22, 2014 · Last modified February 22, 2015
This is a list of some of the most useful homeschool and teaching resources from around the web. I have added in some free resources I found that integrate computer science concepts into science units, plus Engineering units for kids, and units from the CDC (Center for Disease Control). If you have any great resources and websites I should add to this list, leave a comment or leave me a note...
History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 9, 2014 · Last modified September 28, 2020
This semester we are doing a unit on the Civil Rights Movement. I came up with a long list of books that we can read with this unit. Most of them I found at our local library. I thought I would share the list I compiled in case someone else might find it useful: Civil Rights Movement Books you may want to read with your students: Elementary (these are...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 8, 2014 · Last modified October 6, 2020
I didn’t talk very much about what we were up to with German this last semester. With all my health issues it took a bit of a back burner for a while. I mainly had the kids listen to German stories on CD. We are using a German children’s book this year called Bobo Siebenschlafer (affiliate link). I bought both the book and the audio CD. It has been just...
Holiday: New Years / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 29, 2013 · Last modified December 14, 2016
The year is quickly coming to a close. I absolutely love the year end wrap-ups that come on TV… remembering and reflecting on the good, the amazing, the bad, the sad… And it’s worth thinking about our family’s own year in that same way. Here are some questions to consider about the year. At the end of the post I’ll share a year-end wrap-up of my own. (It’ll be a...
Holiday: Christmas Activities / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 16, 2013 · Last modified December 5, 2021
I made some Christmas skip counting mazes for my daughter and printed them out for her math notebook. At the moment she is only work on the 2s, 3s and 5s, but I made other mazes as well since your kids might be ready for more advanced math. Free Holiday Skip Counting Practice 2s thru 7s Click here to save these on Pinterest! If you find them useful, I’d love...
Freebies / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 20, 2013 · Last modified November 15, 2018
Last week my daughter did several skip counting mazes and she asked for more. I whipped a few new sheets together for her… the turkey has to find his lost hat (and not wind up as dinner!). You can move in any direction including diagonally. If you are interested you can download them and use them with your kids as well! Enjoy! Thanksgiving Skip Counting Practice 2s 3s 5s If...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2013 · Last modified May 15, 2016
In the first post in this series, I explained how we had dabbled in writing, but had never found a “program” or curriculum that worked well for us. I found some expert advice from primary classroom teachers, though, and set about creating a workshop that works for our family. I learned about the 6+1 writing traits (the basic qualities that make writing work and include: ideas, organization, word choice, voice, sentence...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 29, 2013 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Getting the Writing Workshop Area Ready One of the things that jumped out for me from all the reading I was doing about writing workshops is that it is important to have a space, routine and materials completely ready to go. We had always fit in writing pell-mell whenever it fit in to our homeschool day. I wanted there to be a designated space (both physically and mentally) for our...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 21, 2013 · Last modified March 29, 2016
Can you believe how soon Halloween will be here? I’ve been trying to come up with some fun, interactive math activities for ED. I loved the idea I saw out on Pinterest back in the summer where someone used googly eyes as manipulatives for addition practice. I drew our own little monster and made ED a packet with some flashcards and addition pages. She is learning very simple addition. ...
Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)
A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
To read more about us CLICK HERE.
Click on the image to find out more about the units and packets we have available.
This post has links to dozens of posts and resources both for new and veteran homeschoolers for everything from finding homeschool curriculum to general homeschool advice and encouragement.
Click on the image above to see the History Units we covered in our homeschool.
What science topics could I teach my 5-7 year old - Homeschool Science Curriculum
Click on the image above to see the Science Units we covered in our homeschool from elementary through middle school (and beyond!).
A list of the books we've used most in history, science, math, language arts, etc.
Click the image to check out our packets on Earth Science, Rocks and Minerals, the Atmosphere, Weather, Energy and More!
Units are also sold separately.
This is one of our most popular units. It covers the Layers of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and More! It is included in the Earth Science Bundle (see the picture/link above).
Click the image to see our Biology Units on Animal and Plant Cells; the Biology Unit on Biomes, Food Chains, Symbiosis; Scientific Classification & Taxonomy (Domain/Kingdom/Phylum/Class, etc.); Botany - Plant Kingdom and Oceans and Oceanography.
Click on the image to see our Animal Bundle - including the Animal Unit, Life Cycles, the Rainforest, Winter (Polar Animals) & Hibernation, Chameleons, Wolves, Cicadas and more!
The Human Body Systems, Skeletal, Digestive, Circulatory, Muscular, Nervous, Endocrine Systems and More (with lots of hands-on activity ideas)! We usually study a different body system each year.
Click on the image to see our units on the States of matter, Properties of Matter, Electricity & Circuits, and the Chemistry Unit (Get to know the Periodic Table in a fun way!)
This is a free checklist I put together of the various science units I hope to cover in the elementary and middle school years.
Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts and also covers geographic features and land forms.
Click on the image to check out our 100-page unit on World War I.
We have used AAS for 6 years! AAS is an affiliate link.
Dozens of posts about how to create a homeschool writing workshop.
Click on the image to check out all of our fun K-2 Math Packets.
This is one of the best values we have... more than 20 PDFs with games, activities and worksheets to learn/practice the multiplication facts ($7.00).
Click on the image to discover some of the pages, posts and homeschool resources within our blog that might be the most useful for you including a long list of our freebies!
Click on the image to check out our 100+page Rocks and Minerals Unit.
This is a fun, hands-on unit for early elementary students!
How the body is organized from cells to tissues... organs to body systems
Click on the image to check out some of the Spanish worksheet bundles we have available!
Click on the image above to check out our German worksheets.
Click on the image to find out more about our units and packets.
